Duns
Limited EditionsIntroduction by Steve Lake

Once upon a time,
it's said, record companies were able to keep pace with the inspirations
of creative musicians. And whenever a Coltrane or a Miles or a Monk
needed to document a new period, phase or idea, the microphones were
there. An idyllic era in retrospect, it was a long time ago.

Today, the relationship
of the improviser to the music business is more distanced than ever.
Sales plummet in the mainstream, the "death of jazz" is trumpeted
once again in the trade press, the number of jazz musicians still courted
by the majors dwindles by the week. Many fine musicians are reduced
to paying their way onto one of the pseudo-independent labels that now
define the "cockroach capitalisrn" of the alternative jazz
marketplace. Small wonder that others throw up their hands and go it
alone. Click on the European Free Improvisation Pages on the Internet
for a glimpse of just how many. Yet the feeling persists in some quarters
that self-made CDs are not "real" records – they won't
be reviewed in the dailies, say, if they don't carry the imprimatur
of a commercial label or have "proper" distribution. If the
same criteria were applied to literary production, history would have
been deprived of such self-published classics as Joyce's Ulysses,
Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Whitman's Leaves of Grass,
Lawrence's Women In Love, and the complete works of William
Blake. For instance.

I don't know how
many Joyces or Whitmans there are in the world of improvisation but
for sheer prolificacy and range and intensity, few contemporary artists
in any idiom can hold a candle to Paul Dunmall. The South London-born
saxophonist's resumé as a player takes in work with everybody
from Johnny Guitar Watson to the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, from
Alice Coltrane to Robin Williamson. He's one of the most open-minded,
open-eared improvisers anywhere and that openness is reflected in Duns
Limited Edition, arguably the most exciting home-grown label to have
shot up in our new century. Masterminded from Pigeon House Cottages
in the Worcestershire country village of Leigh, once renowned for its
hop farming, DLE has racked up more than 20 releases in less than two
years. Between them, they cover a lot of musical ground and represent
cottage industry at its most industrious. Simply packaged, often with
Dunmall's own paintings, woodcuts, engravings, or photos as cover and
booklet art, the DLE discs spill over with ideas, good humour, musical
sensitivity and torrential, passionate playing, and are opening up some
uncharted areas in improvisation. They've provided much of my own "off-duty"
listening pleasure in recent months.

Like many such ventures
DLE began almost by accident. Paul Dunmall couldn't find a label home
for his first album of solo bagpipe playing and was obliged to go by
the do-it-yourself route. Solo Bagpipes
(DLE 001), a fascinating study in textures and an expose of new technical
possibilities for the pipes, was eagerly snapped up by listeners in
the clubs, and the label was up and running. Paul found himself intrigued
by the speed with which albums could be turned around. Record for a
"real" label and you might wait 18 months to two years for
your work to see the light of day – by which time you would certainly
have moved on as a player. With DLE he could record in July and have
finished copies for sale in August. It was possible to think of the
discs almost as newspapers: This is the latest news, this is what we're
doing now. Without any limits imposed by another label's agenda.

Today the DLE discs
sprawl over several territories. Free jazz or energy playing is one
of them, nowhere better demonstrated than on the thunderous Live
At The Subtone, with guitarist John Adams and drummer Mark
Sanders, whose two pieces (you wouldn't call them "compositions")
are titled "Yelling For You" and "Yelling For You Part
Two". Dunmall, when the mood takes him, is an epic, heroic yeller,
with a lung capacity to rival Charles Gayle's, Brotzmann's or the late
Frank Wright's. Sam Rivers' old guiding principle "form is out,
content makes its own form" is invoked on discs like this, or Zap
ll and Zap III, both
of which are powered by double drummers (Mark Sanders and Steve Noble
on Zap II, Noble and Tony Marsh on Zap III).

Paul Dunmall has
a particular affinity for drums and drumming. His father was a drummer
(there's a snap of his dad drumming with a swing band in the Subtone
sleeve) and he played drums himself before turning to reeds (first clarinet,
then alto, then tenor). Early experiences were in soul music, in rock.
No surprise, then, that he hears more "rhythmically" than
others in the free zone do. A duo with Tony Marsh, just drums and tenor/soprano,
prompts a few Interstellar Space comparisons as Dunmall digs
deep into the scattershot beat.

But in general the
"late Coltrane" tag that's often put on Dunmall is an oversimplification.
Or let's say he was once more in thrall to the great man than he is
today. Of course, he continues to acknowledge his influence. Which worthwhile
hornman wouldn't? Amongst the most straight-ahead post-Coltrane outings
on DLE is one of the label's few deep-archive offerings,
Live In London, a 1992 recording. The rhythm section of
Tim Wells and Dave Alexander has a steam engine's drive, freeing Dunmall
to soar and swoop on tenor and C-Melody saxes. Lovely, clearly-etched
playing here; it might not be a bad place for the Dunmall novice to
start.

Onosante
and Kunikazu feature Dunmall with
two regular associates, Gibbs on guitar and Keith Tippett on piano.
Peter Fairclough's the drummer on both, and bassist Roberto Bellatalla
is added for Kunikazu. Tippett's such a strong and decisive
player, whether playing on the piano's keys or its harp of strings,
that there are obvious overlaps with the work of that great improvising
ensemble Mujician, yet the group has its own character, too. Free jazz
is only part of the palette; when Tippett's playing his spontaneous
prepared piano patterns and Gibbs is playing percussively all references
are open. Sometimes there's a sense of village music from some yet-to-be-discovered
locale…

The duo albums with
Paul Rogers, Alien Art and Ja
Ja Spoon are completely fulfilling. The two players have
a rare understanding. Locked in at a telepathic level, they can play
intimately, roar together, suggest folk colours, or imply an almost
orchestral scope. As an arco player, Rogers has very few equals in jazz.
"When I play with Paul Rogers," says Dunmall, "sometimes
I just want to stop and listen to him. Such a fantastic musician."

Entirely different
from all the foregoing is the beautiful Manjah,
on which Dunmall and Gibbs meet Indian mridangam player M. Balachandar.
It's not a culture-fusion project of the kind that fills the world music
browser bins. Dunmall's had a deep interest in Indian music for more
than three decades, but wouldn't presume to try and play it. The percussionist,
rather, is drawn into the improviser's world. Dunmall plays fleet, buoyant,
lyrical soprano throughout, ably counterpointed by Gibbs's agile guitar.

Manjah,
recorded February 2001 was a pointer to things to come on DLE: At the
end of the following month Dunmall recorded a folk/poetry/free improvising
session with singer Robin Williamson for ECM. Ten days later he taped
the double album Something Normal
for his own label. It's undoubtedly one of the most innovative albums
on DLE, a challenging wide-open session that pushes the parameters of
so-called non-idiomatic improvising. There's nothing generic about it
all. It's free and it's improvised, but the string tangled interplay
of John Adams and Philip Gibbs, heard mostly on acoustic instruments
(guitars, banjos, ukelele, mandolin), alludes also to folk, bluegrass,
the blues, oriental music. The music feels "rooted" rather
than "cerebral". But there's a sense that anything can happen.
At the start of Disc B, the session breaks down in gales of laughter.
Sometimes the discovery of new sounds can be a preposterous undertaking.
Dunmall's own appearances on this set are rationed but each of his contributions
is telling. There's a sequence of gloriously swirling soprano solos
from "Normal Past, Out Future" onward, before the music is
closed down with cacophonic electric guitars on "The Final Wedge".
The listener comes away from the album with the feeling that something
not at all normal has transpired.

An important collaborator
over the past year has been engineer Jonathan Scott. The rich sound
he gets at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol has also enhanced the DLE adventure.
lt makes, for instance, Solo Bagpipes ll
a deeper listening experience than its predecessor (although Dunmall's
increased facility is not to be gainsaid). We simply hear more in the
grain of the sound. It's customary, when speaking of free improvised
documents, to wave away inferior sonics as beside the point. In fact
good sound is crucial, especially when much of the interactive detail
is manifested in the overtone range.

Scott has a brief
showing as a percussionist, too, at the end of All
Sorts of Rituals playing darbouka and djembe. Unusual instrumentation
features prominently on this disc. Philip Gibbs may be the first free
improviser to solo on the Indian banjo (otherwise known as the bulbul
tarang) on Ritual Two. Autoharp
and theremin have roles to play, and Dunmall fields a few of his renaissance
woodwinds and recites the appalling tale of the martyrdom of Henry Smith
in Paris, Texas, in 1893.

Spoken word is foregrounded
on The Vision, again a Dunmaill/Gibbs
collaboration, with Dunmall reading a text by Shri Ramakrishna on the
title track. This is potentially risky ground: the "mystical"
terrifies the beer-and-skittles end of the jazz audience. Yet it can't
be denied that music through the ages has attempted to channel higher
impulses. Dunmall, if pushed, will admit to feeling that improvisation
is a means of "approaching or connecting with the beyond, a way
of expressing and manifesting the divine energy" and on The
Vision he nails his colours to the mast. Ramakrishna's is a beautiful
text and Dunmall's South London accent seems to "earth" it
in a charming way. John Stevens would've approved of this unpretentious
treatment, I think. The slow pace at which this album unfolds –
helped along by some luminous vibraphone from Dunmall and Gibbs's filigree
guitar – has an almost hypnotic effect.

This is equally
true of The State of Moksha, which
also settles upon the listener like an evening raga. Tambouras drone,
Dunmall defines the Hindu term Moksha for us, and Paul Rogers' heart-dilating
bass solo could be seen to elucidate further the concept of final liberation,
of release from the bitter cycle of birth and death. In the most recent
DLE releases there is a new focussing of resources, a new concentration.
On Moksha, Dunmall's soprano does
not enter until the 21st minute, and the music is the stronger for the
holding back.

There is a coming
together of all of Paul Dunmall's interests in the new music on DLE.
Using the drone of Indian music as a centering element, and an ever-widening
range of instruments for sound colour potential and spontaneous orchestration,
using the spoken word both for direct communication and to hint at the
serious concerns behind the sometimes unruly noisemaking, Dunmall is
drawing up a framework in which creative improvising can take place
at a high level. Moksha, the album, is a doorway opening onto
a new space … and a piece of very moving music in its own right.

Steve Lake,
23 June 2002

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